TN TC 11

This past weekend and the early part of this week my friend Josh and I made our (pretty much) annual trip to Josh's brother Jake's house in Eastern Tennessee to ride bikes for a few days in the mountains. Tennessee Training Camp (TN TC) we have come to call it.
We left Saturday morning to get down in enough time to do a little ride Saturday evening; just a quick little hour or so to spin the legs before dark. We got that in and done and were planning a biggish day in the mountains for Sunday.
My friend and local B-town hammer Erik Hamilton just happened to be in the area doing some riding himself. He had been down since Friday and knowing he doesn't really know the area I though it'd be a good idea to have him meet up w/ us since Jake lives there and knows all the routes. So he went us for Sunday's ride which took us over two mountain passes, one being via Butterfly Gap which is a relentless 15min slugger. Hamilton is fast and everyone knows that, but he really impressed me w/ his climbing. Don't label him a "crit rider" too fast; he may upset you. Anyway, we put in ~3.5hrs w/ ~5,000' of climbing. We did some gnarly descents too. My descending ability has gotten significantly better all of the sudden and I don't really know why. Nor do I care why, I'll take it and roll w/ it.

(Josh climbing the Parkway)
Erik and his lady, Caitlin took off after we rode Sunday and Monday Jake, Josh and I did a killer ride called The Homestead Loop that goes over a mountain pass that has a vacation housing addition plopped right on top of it called Homestead. The addition, Homestead, has a bastard of ac limb to get into it, then rolls a bunch until you hit 2 ~24% gradients back to back. Then it's peel-you-eyelids-back descending out of the addition (really fast, scary, sketchy descending).
The you roll along mostly flat roads until you get into Smoky Mountains National Park, where you climb over another mountain pass then ride the rolling roads home. Great ride. Probably my favorite there.

(Jake and Josh w. mountains in the background)

Tuesday we wanted to do something shorter (we'd done 3+hrs the past two days n a row) so we just rode to the top of the Parkway and back. It's ~2:15 and only 1 mountain pass, but much more steady of a climb (the climbs, generally ended up being 15+minute threshold intervals).
It was a nice little ride, but Josh flatted his front wheel which had on it a ~5-10yr old tubular tire. So he turned around and started to head home on a flatted tubular. There's only 1 person I would trust to able able to safely ride a flatted tubular down a mountain and that's Josh. He made it all the way home on a 100% flat tire (one of the advantages of a tubular is it can be ridden flat, but he rode that thing ~15miles flat and ~4 of those were descending where if you let off your brakes you immediately go ~40mph!).

(driving home)

Wednesday Josh and I were heading home so we all went out for a quick little easy spin in the morning. We woke up to the news that Nate Dogg had died, and Josh had Snoop's "Doggie Style" in his truck, so we had to bump that coming home.

We had a great time. The weather was really great for once. It has rained every day of every time I've been there (that' not an exaggeration either, every single day). It rained for part of one day this year, and it stopped when we rode that day, so we didn't get rained on at all. Plus we went into Knoxville and I'd never been into Knoxville proper; it's a nice place. We had beers at a downtown brewery had pizza (and more beers) at a place called Barley's. There was a band playing there too, but they were taking way too long to get ready and they didn't look at all like bluegrass, so we ditched out before they started. Really fun time though.
Holy crap, this is getting way too long. My apologies. If you stuck it out this long reading, thanks (and sorry).
Now it's back to work, back to "normal" bike training and probably racing next weekend!!!!!!

"...and if your ass is buster 2-1-3 will regulate."